I usually see the garment rack i bought from hardware store in Cubao, standing next to our screen door, each time i get home from work.

The mere sight of it gets me “started” and jazzed-up for a day of mindless scolding and incensed chattering about keeping-the-house-in-order, sense-of-responsibility, what-the-future-holds, and other favorites topics a parent blabbers about before an unyielding teenager.

But today, i saw no garment rack. The door was not locked, and all the kids are asleep. I checked the perimeter of our apartment unit for any sign of that darned metal rack, only to find it perched on a rung in the middle of the stairway that goes to the rooftop.

Now i got someone new i can shout at.

So i leapt through flights of stairs, bolted my way to the Building Admin Office and asked for Chris and Collen. I’ve always known it is him and that sunnovagun who moves the racks to the rooftop stairway.

I began my litany of complaints, yakking about how annoying enough it is that the sun has not come up for days and all i’m getting for my wet clothes is the damp draft that probably carries with it some countless spores of mildew and old apartment dust.

Then some elderly man living three doors away from my unit popped from behind me and interrupted my raging speech:

“Aha! So you own those clothes rack. Good thing they carried it up the stairway. It was a nuisance and an ugly sight to see in the hallway. I could barely get my butt through each time i pass by with that rack blocking the way”.

“And what am i supposed to do with my clothes?” I answered back. “Dump them back in my cabinet? I got no other place to dry them? It’s not like i have any other—”

“—You know young man, It’s not my problem” cut the surly old man. Why don’t you go and look for a laundromat somewhere. That way, i won’t have to put up with your stupid clothes rack everytime i go here or there.”

“Hey hey there mister. Don’t go about strutting you senior citizen card for an excuse to boss around and impose your convenience to my inconvenience. Your rights end right where my nose starts! And look, we all live in this cramped apartment space and we don’t even have a provisioning for doing the laundry. How in the world am i gonna dry my clothes with such a small living space?”

“And what about this garment rack? There is a reason why these contraptions exists— and are sold in every department store in this country. These are space savers. In fact, they were designed for small living spaces. These wonderful inventors—thank God for their gift of innovation and ingenuity—foresaw that one day, these wretched, average-incomed families will end up crowding in rickety apartments all across the overpopulated Mega Manila.”

“And each of these extended families will need to hang their clothes dry after a long day of washing.”

“Where else can you hang these clothes, in this congested apartment that has nothing but walls of brittle concrete. God knows which walls would fall apart if we dare hammer a couple of spikes to put up a make-shift clothesline. Would you rather have lines upon lines of clothes dangling above your head. Wouldn’t that make us look like a world-class third-world apartment complex?”

“And seriously, you can’t get your butt through with this damned metal rack? Go get yourself a pair of dumb bells and start shredding fats off your fat fat ass. And stop eating mounds and mounds of pork fat and rice!”

I am writing this email to you, after an appalling conclusion I have made after reading the email thread below.

I am also sending this to you, because you are one of the few people I know, few years above my senior, that I respect so much (as well as (colleague 1), and (colleague 2) who sadly, has left the company). If you must know, I am a proud person—and a very proud one, and I used to pride myself as no respecter of persons—but I guess years of highs and lows in life have changed things.

I guess I’m just saying that when I say I look up to someone, I seriously mean it.

As I digest the contents of this email, I reach this frightening conclusion that in this business of profiteering, my team is an expendable asset (as any assets are—but it’s scarier when it gets real—and when it falls on you). And therefore, all efforts are but futile attempts to add “drops” of value to an “ocean” of business demands and needs.

Why do I say this? It’s because I know that our very existence was created to close the gaps that other delivery units fail to bring to the (name of company) “table”—and tow along a few desirable treats. If they did their jobs efficiently, we would have never existed in the first place.

I think it’s this feeling of expendability that fuels my insatiable drive of improving all that I could get my hands on. But to be honest, there are times I get overwhelmed with things that the moment demands, and with things that are bound to bring sustainable results, but requires a significant amount of effort to achieve.

But make no mistake, I am not leaving anytime soon. I want to see our organization mature into a driving force this company so much needs. And I am thankful for your tireless efforts—to the littlelest of things (my stupid excel mistakes) to the greatest of things (supporting (name of bigwig)) as the ((name of bigwig’s role) for the global factories)—in leading this organization to that direction.

So here’s to looking forward to another fruitful year for everyone here at (name of organization). Cheers!

We teachers often rely on students’ written assessments to assess their skills and understanding. But through in-depth probes with students, we unravel valuable information not readily available on written assessments. This information is essential for guiding instructional decisions made by teachers and school administrators, and is sadly under-utilized even at the university level.

Let’s look at one recently-documented case featured in an Educator’s Magazine.

A 5th-grader was presented with a card: 30 students, 4 students in a car. He was asked how many cars are needed to fit in the students. The child answered “7 remainder 2.”

The child was able to compute correctly, but that alone is no indicator of division proficiency. It made sense numerically, but not in the context of the problem. A “remainder 2” does not make absolute sense to the question “how many cars are needed”. Division work on naked numbers – such without connections to context requiring interpretation – may make students fail to see the importance of reasoning to decide on the answers’ meaning.

I have always believed that a student does not stop with acquiring information, but with understanding how that information relates to various contexts and real-life scenarios.

For instance, we do not end with making students remember and know how to manipulate formulas in solving initial velocity or work done. We end by checking their understanding of the interdependence and relationship of each variable, and the relevance of these computations to their everyday lives.

Truthfully, our schools are dearth with teachers who understand and appreciate the relevance of these mathematical operations to their day-to-day routine. Their learning mostly ends up confined in their classrooms and lesson plans. No wonder, our schools are being deliberately plagued by living robots and zombies, inspired by a withering passion for the teaching cause, and slaves to the political machinery of the local bureaucrats.

Too often, we brag that we know and we understand what we teach. But when asked about how it translates to our daily lives, we tend to dismiss it by reasoning “This is not the time for cerebral calisthenics.”

Add up the fact that our current educational system does not afford us ample time to probe and explore students’ comprehension. We are burdened with a thickly-ornamented curriculum

1. that forces us to incorporate all possible combinations of approaches and methods, and

2. does not drill deep into the students’ frail comprehension framework.

We limit ourselves to a pen-and-paper standard, when much of the learning and understanding is masked by a record of outstanding or deficient grades.

Written assessments do not necessarily reveal the real situation of a child’s learning. And inevitably, these patterns of learning carry on from college to workplaces. It is no wonder that despite the brilliant achievements of today’s thinkers and movers of the society, we are still swarming with underdeveloped individuals who trigger societal and economic breakdowns.

Moving forward, we do not want more and more ill-prepared Juans and Marias to fill up the workforce of the coming generations. We must take up arms as teachers and innovate our approaches and strategies to address this harsh cycle of deficient learning and build up a better society that generates life-long solutions for a better and sustainable life.

Thoughts about Legalized Gambling, Jobs for Jobless Pinoys and Gibo lingered in my mind for months – almost a year perhaps.

For a while, I thought I always knew the answers but when I start asking myself questions about gambling, I realize that I am not so sure of my thoughts about it after all.

Maybe because the question of wagering lives of families is a delicate issue?

I always find myself holding off my thoughts. Maybe it’s pride, but my mind always engages itself in a constant battle to arrive at a correct judgment, and to maintain a balanced opinion when explaining things.

When I thought about Gibo’s stand on gambling, I thought, yeah, he’s right. No father would want their children to sleep with empty stomachs.

But what about the little time we should give ourselves? That little time where we lose ourselves, at least once in a week of heavy workload, and relax just a little bit.

But at the same time, no one will never truly want a father who spends sleepless nights in a casino, staking his monies on slot machines or Roulette. They would certainly want them by their sides.

And at the end of the day, who will want to have their mothers intoxicated with expensive wines, the smell of rare tobacco sticks wafting in the ceilings of their childhood bedrooms, if they just had the choice?

I believe we can do better than provide food for our tables and keep our homes warm and comfortable. And I also believe that temperance is a virtue no ordinary human has ever mastered.

Truthfully, we wouldn’t even be thinking about this if greed and decadence never existed as a concept in our societies.

Air molecules naturally gravitate
towards a body of any given mass,
a thick blanket held together
by force.

* * * * *

We do not create such behaviors
The ideal man seeks to co-exist
peacefully with his environment.

(scientific perspective (slash) reality check)

Man is a higher-order mammal.
Hence, the Aggression for Territory

They mark down their domains with
ineffable imprints;
cutting past the throats of the Amazonia,
strangling the bowels of the Mediterranean,
let alone the gastric juices
breaking down chemical bonds on
cooked (processed) meat and veggies.

(Explanation: the existence of Taiwan,
North Korea, East Timor, Western Africa and
several Post-Soviet States)

This is regarding my complaint about your services. This also involves the retailer who facilitated my Globe Prepaid load request.

I have two issues. Miscommunication and Accountability/Taking Responsibility. I am not sure if the second one mentioned was correctly termed, but I hope i sent the message across correctly.

I usually purchase a 100-peso load every so often from a retailer located at the 2nd Floor of CyberOne Building in Eastwood City. That 100-perso load fits my needs well, because I don’t call a lot really; I only text. I use that amount to register to the 5-day Unlitext promo. It’s economical, affordable, and saves me from the hassleof losing text load during the most inconvenient times and situations—for five days, at least.

Underscoring inconvenient times and situations:

In a 40 – 90 minute meeting on a tension-strained room on the 23rd floor of a building

On an MRT coach, 6 stations away to your destination

On a bus, 30 minutes away to your destination, under a scorching 12 O’clock sun

In the middle of a conference @ the Henry Lee Irwin Theatre in the Ateneo {where the loading station is a tricycle away (and that is if a tricycle comes by.

But then, they’ll charge you 25 pesos for special fare. And then queue up for a trike going back—that’s if you get to chance someone who’ll enter the Ateneo by trike.)}

5. On the 4th floor of your apartment, at the very end of the building wing (with a lengthy, steep staircase,) very exhausted from work, and then finding out that your load is used up.

6. You just got back from lunch and got an 8888 SMS telling your Unlitext Promo is expired, and your next break is at 3 PM.

And when you do get down to the local retailing joint, you’d later on haveto fight your way back to the office against a swarm of people trying to squeeze their way to an elevator serving over 12 companies with more or less 1,200 employees each.

Et cetera…

And besides, texting saves me a lot of battery power.

Just last Monday, I went to that same store to buy the usual load amount I often do. But I was encouraged to buy a 600-peso load when the retailer guy offered me a Super Duo promo that he said offered not only unlimited calls for a month, but also texting—again, for a month.

I remember asking him twice about the Unlitext add-on feature of the Super Duo promo. I didn’t really care if the promo prominently featured an Unlicall element; it just wasn’t my need. It just wasn’t. I just text, but this guy and his offer looked temptingly assuring.

I remember asking “are you sure?” He said yeah.

I said, if there are free calls with my unlitext, then why not?

But it was 600-peso load. You won’t find a 500-peso bill lying freely on an aisle or by the gutter anywhere. But what encouraged me was the free text—for a month—at least that’s what he said. I really didn’t want to shell out 600 pesos. There’s so much you could buy with it, but convenience, comfort and economical gains won the day.

So I bought it, and went on enjoying my free calls and text until May 19, 2010. That afternoon, I could no longer send texts. Then I found out that my Load balance is zero. I called 211 to complain about this, and spoke with customer service guy Rommel Daion and manager John Gonzales.

Sadly, they couldn’t do anything much about it. Thanks to Globe’s self-serving policies, and capitalistic mechanics, I now have no real use with my free calls. Now, I am forced to call anyone I need to talk with. And almost nobody answers. Mainly because they’d rather text than call.

I wish that all of you study customer usage/behavior patterns and trending. It will help you understand my point.

Customer service said the promo registration went through successfully, and that’s where their responsibility ends. To put it bluntly in layman’s terms, that means:

We got your money now M0ron. Now, because of your m0ronity and lack of knowledge, you just wasted (I mean wasted because I don’t need calls, I need texts) 600 pesos for a good-for-nothing promo. Toodles!

Globe, where is your accountability? Whatever happened to “taking responsibility.” Does it end with chastising the retailer and better-luck-next-time for me? I demand equity and just decisions. Do you expect us to read every single promo there is?

You know this life is fast-paced. It’s the very same reason why advertisements are continuously designed to capture the short-attention spanned-public of this fast-changing generation. It’s because there is just less time for ourselves and companies should better shape their products to adapt to this fast-paced life we’re living.

My issue: your concern with your customers who don’t have time for themselves, who takes responsibility when misinformation happens, and your accountability to your loyal customers as a service provider.

Do you understand how we work our asses off just to get our money’s worth?

Recently sa ofis, nag-email blast ang mga katrabaho ko tungkol sa isang napaka-quaint na phenomenon sa Pinoy Society from what i know has been well around since the advent of 2000, namely the Attack of the Jejemons .

And these reactionary movemenst against the Jejemons in Facebook and online forums are very reminiscent of America’s utter disdain against the Irish back in the 1800’s and the Blacks back in the 1900’s on towards the turn of the 20th century.

But there is one thing I will always remember from my Language Classes regarding this phenomenon. That a language evolves . That a language is living, and it absorbs elements from the the very culture that uses it.

Now, just because we don’t like something doesn’t mean we have the right to condemn it. Fine, there are language experts and there’s the Grammar Police, but who’s to say that this is how this or that should be always used?

Case in point: The Thees and Thous of the King James Version. We don’t “thee” to people we talk to. We don’t ask if we “mayest” have “something.” We don’t say “thy” to mean “you” in these times.

The truth is, no matter how much shaping and regulating we do, the future will never be clear to us.

Let us just do our part by educating the masses, give more support to our educational institutions, and you know, take it easy. It’s not like wala ka ding ka-jologan sa buhay. Hindi ka anak ni Henry Sy para mang-lambast ng kung sinu-sino as if sila’y mga basahan at hampas-lupa.

The distinguishing mark of science, for Popper, is that it seeks to falsify, not to confirm, its hypotheses.

= That is a remarkable proposal. I do the same thing with religion. I seek to falsify what i believe as true faith.

Advantage = that leaves no room for doubt. Attempts in falsifying a true “truth” would in fact strip off misconceptions and untruths associated with it, thereby strengthening the corollary thruths supporting the greater truth.

Such a mode of thinking encourages open-mindedness and scientific/professional maturity, without necessarily wearing the cloak of high scholarship.

epistemic = of relating to knowledge

Karl Popper’s Demarcation = Drawing the line between pseudo-science and science

I never used to. I used to look up to this school as one of the country’s best. And then it hit me: The majority of the teaching and administrative workforce operating the public/private school systems here in the country come from the PhilippineNormalUniversity.

Now, i am about to raise overlapping issues here, but that is not the concern. Whether there’s funding or not, the issue still stands: the university is producing a multitude of sub-competent teachers along with an outstandingly brilliant few.

* * * * * * * *

I remember an anecdote shared by a friend.

The story goes like this: The teacher was discussing introductory stuff, and in the course of the discussion, his classmate casually mentioned that she’s a physics major and that she deals with a lot of theoretical physics.

She caught the ire of her professor, who then proceeded with criticizing PNU’s Physics Curriculum and how incompetent its products are. The prof went on and on at how conceited the students in front of him are, and even went borderline when he said they’re nothing but lowlifes so get back on your paperwork and finish the problem set.

Or something to that effect.

The professor by the way is an accomplished theoretical physicist working for the government.

* * * * * * * *

Another story was from my sister, who spent her freshman and sophomore years in PNU. When she spent a semester in one of the universities along Recto, she had the most appalling classroom experience with the students and the instructor.

The professor yakked and yakked gibberish, and was sorely transliterating Pinoy concepts in a Victorian-cum-Academic concocted English. My sister, through the course of the session, almost dominated the discussion as most of the students in the class had less or no clue of what the professor was teaching.

After the class ended, she could hear the students rave about her “performance”, thereby cementing in their minds the so-called fame that PNU students have: smart, country-loving, diligent seekers of knowledge. And my sister said she never discussed anything life-changing or worthy of publishing. She merely articulated her opinions explicitly.

She’s really not the student-leader type, nor the campus-nerdy sort. She told me she can’t believe her blockmates were blown away by her act when she knows she never really said anything grand.

I believed her.

* * * * * * * *

Now i don’t have statistics at hand, but all you have to do is visit your local public school (by surprise) and sit with your children for the next 30 minutes. Prepare yourself to be terrified. And also 10 pesos for the compulsory soup sold by the school’s co-op.

And don’t get me started with the many professors i had at PNU Manila. I learned more from columnists of the major dailies than from their classes. I seriously doubt that they had ever engaged themselves in a worthwhile research to enrich their career.

Received this email from the Pathways Philippines e-group, where I used to be active. I am with Governor Padaca and her fight for equity, justice and good governance. Font styles and colors are mine.

PUBLIC STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR GOVERNOR GRACE PADACA

We,democracy and freedom-loving Filipinos,fully stand by Isabela Governor Grace Padaca who we believe is the legitimate winner of the 2007 gubernatorial elections in the said province amid an unfair ruling by the Commission on Elections Second Division composed of Commissioners Nicodemo Ferrer, Lucenito Tagle and Elias Yusoph.

As fellow Filipinos, we believe that this resolution to unseat Governor Padaca in favor of former Governor Benjamin Dyis highly questionable and the evidence raised forth against Padaca raises significant doubt as to the validity of Dy’s claims of electoral fraud resulting to his loss.

The May 2007 elections saw Governor Padaca win by 17,007 votes over Benjamin Dy. Had Governor Padaca used dishonest means, this kind of margin will be next to impossible to pull off given that Padaca’s resources are scant and her political machinery nonexistent. If there is a candidate with a vast campaign fund and an organized machinery, it would most certainly be the Dy family who have been in power in Isabela for over forty years, until Padaca defeated them in the 2004 elections.

Governor Padaca has shown integrity as the highest government official of the province, not to mention efficiency and strong political will, all without dubious, illegal transactions. Her campaign against illegal logging in the Sierra Madre mountains has so far proven successful especially after Typhoon Pepeng hit Northern Luzon late this year. Her other programs have greatly benefited the people of Isabela, including health, education, good governanceand electoral reforms.

In the past five and a half years that Governor Padaca has served as the local chief executive of Isabela, she has encountered numerous unnecessary problems, among them flagrant non-cooperation by some government offices with the provincial government leading to conflicts. These particular offices are not known to support Governor Padaca; however that does not give them an excuse to disregard common courtesy and protocol and fulfill their duties as required by law.

This should not be the case for any government official. Padaca won in 2007 via a clean and honest election and deserves to be treated as such. The Comelec’s resolution ousting Padaca is not the first attempt of her opponents at regaining control of Isabela. However, the people of Isabela themselves have shown that they have chosen Padaca to govern them for another term, and they, along with the rest of the Filipinos who believe in her and in justice, will not rest until the truth prevails.

We call on all supporters of Governor Padaca as well as Filipinos who believe in good governance to fight against corruption and injustice being done to a good Filipino leader. We believe that this issue is not confined solely to the borders of Isabela, but concerns all Filipinos. We cannot let this happen in Isabela inasmuch as we refuse to let it happen in our own provinces, cities, and municipalities. The fight here is between right and wrong, between good governance and corruption, between truth and falsehood. If we let this injustice happen, we will continue to be at the mercy of a corrupt system that seeks to destroy democratic institutions which were established to serve the needs of the people, not the interests of a selfish few. As citizens of the Philippines, wehave the duty to preserve the integrity of our democratic institutions and hold accountable officials who fail to uphold the truth.

Let us not allow evil to triumph and together let us take a stand for the truth, for justice, and for good governance. The fight of Isabela is a fight of the entire Philippines.Karla Angelica G. Pastores
Program Officer, Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship
Ateneo School of Government
Pacifico Ortiz Hall, Social Development Complex
Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, QC
Tel. (02) 426 6001 loc. 4637 | Fax (02) 426 5657

There’s a lot more, i guess… But these were the newsmakers of mid ’till late 2009.

I have checked the blogs of Dr. Jose Dalisay, Director of the UP Institute of Creative Writing and National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera. The last updates about the issue were posted probably around September.

So does that make Magno “Carlo” Caparas, Cecille Guidote-Alvarez and the five others National Artists?

Sad, sad, sad…

This scandal will join the other scams into blissful oblivion, leaving all behind this scam, along with other perpetrators of various crimes freely roaming this forsaken land.

“It’s not hard to determine the motive,” according to Philippine analyst Kenneth E. Bauzon. “How dare this [Mangudadatu] challenge him when he knows that the governor is a position that is presumably reserved for [the Ampatuan] family.”

I was lucky to stumble on it sa TV5 one boring Wednesday night while channel surfing (local, no cable tv at the dorm) (Dating ABC) sometime this November (I think).

I never thought I’d ever get a chance to see this. I was on night shift back then when it was shown in theaters.

But like they say in Filipino, kung minsan, sadyang mapagbiro ang tadhana.

I had high expectations about the film. Primarily because it’s indie. And also because it’s about the call center industry (where I presume a lot of talented, creative individuals pass time while waiting for their rockets to come, and where I presume the film director has had some experience with).

Pasensya na talaga sa director at screenwriters ng My Fake American Accent (this is very Filipino—I mean the apologizing), but i don’t think the movie is quite ripe for production. They should’ve incubated this for a year more. That will give them a lot of time to think everything over (scripts, casting, dialogue delivery, location probably… etc).

I am suddenly reminded of Hiro Nakamura’s apologetic bow to a certain lady in Heroes before hitting her with a baseball bat.

The movie is very pretentious. Tapos parang wrong casting, lalo na si Buster at si Eric. ‘Di mukhang “galing PMA” si Buster. Parang pinipilit niyang magpakalalaki. The Eric guy’s kind of the same too. The movie appears to try to build an impression to the viewers that the Eric Guy is kind of a “sizzling hunk” but he looked (and acted) lame, pale and whimpy.

Mailes Kanapi’s depiction of TL Joanna Seva’s character is an exaggeration. She could’ve toned down the nuances and the emotional flare-ups a bit to make it look more authentic. Unless exagerration is the director’s main point.

Also, parang ‘di natural ‘yung exchange ng conversation between the characters. They appeared to be waiting for prompts (for the most part) or they’re probably just a bit too tensed the whole time. I would like to commend the QA guy (Martin de la Paz) though. In the movie, he is the closest semblance of what some L2 agents are when at work.

But that doesn’t save the movie from its crass dialogues and fake emotions (I guess that’s where the movie title gets its drive).

And the burglar in the story! How he waxed poetic for the succeeding 5 or 10 minutes (and I can’t believe how “forever” five minutes is) is just dumbfounding. Darn, I know putting a customer on hold for 2 minutes seemed such a long time (yes I tried that with Globe POSTPAID and SMART POSTPAID and the MERALCO HOTLINE back when an electric post in our area got torched sometime last year).

But between listening to the hold music and the burglar’s rhetoric, I’d rather have the music.

The gay director in the film who dumped Astrid’s screenplay is likewise worthy of note. Now that’s authentic. 😀

I have this sinister feeling that most Filipino Lit and Writing Giants in the Philippines are like that.

There’s a lot of unbridled angst and political/socio-cultural commentaries everywhere in the movie, waiting to burst and impose itself to the viewers, and intensified by matching camera angles meant to underscore and ram hordes of statements and heart-rending “life lessons” in one sitting.

It turned out annoying in every true sense of the word.

* * * * * * * * * *

At some point I doubted my thoughts about the film. Which somehow explains why it took me long to publish this online. But when I browsed the net for comments about the film, it came clear to me that I am apparently heading the right direction.

I still could not forget how many scenes and dialogue exchanges sent shivers to my bones. I thank God I never attempted watching this in the theater. I didn’t have the time anyway when that was shown in theaters.

Educators today face the challenge of teaching learners who need different Englishes for diverse purposes, all while English and its uses are also changing. These changes raise new questions for policy, teaching and research. How should governments and educational systems respond? In what ways should classrooms change? What kinds of research are needed given these new realities? Gathering those involved in language education in the Asia-Pacific, the conference provides a venue for the discussion of these issues from a variety of perspectives and for stimulating new work in these areas.

CONFERENCE FEES
For local participants
* Php 5,000 for three days
* Php 1,600 for Day 3 only

For foreign participants
* USD 150 for three days

Fees include access to all presentations, lunch, morning and afternoon snacks, a kit with the conference program and other complementary materials, and a certificate of participation (available upon request).
REGISTRATION RESERVATION
You are encouraged to reserve a participant’s slot in the conference by sending the following details to esea2009reg@admu.edu.ph or by registering online at www.ateneo.edu/esea2009

Registration will be considered complete only after the conference fee has been paid.

EARLY BIRD DEADLINE
An early-bird conference fee of Php 4,500 (local participants) for three days and USD 130 (foreign participants) will apply to those who have completed registration by 30 September 2009.

ACCOMMODATIONS
Please make your own arrangements regarding your accommodations for the conference. Here are links for online hotel reservations:

Like they say, boys never grow old. They just add years to themselves, wear beards and mustache, and slip into sleek, trendy suits and classy leather shoes.

You’ll see their same old selves through their email threads/email exchanges, “big boys” speeding along the freeway with their flashy convertibles or lording over their living rooms with lightning-speed downloads (3.5 G, HSDPA, you know..) and 2 Terabyte disk spaces; conference room conversations and all through their infrequent messed-up moments.

You’ll see school-playground-brawlings-in-downtown-alleys rematches tamed in the form of stealthily crafted memos and meeting minutes. A tap in the back used to always mean support and right-back-atcha shoutouts. But 21st century prudence tells a modern man that evil plans are underway, and terrifyingly off your radar.

Yes, the fears of a man are indeed a multitude. But fear not, the child in every man is living. Do not forget that a child unleashes anger like hell breaking loose, but forgets everything as he downs a bowlful of crab and corn soup after sundown. The women of the house knows this. Old folks know this too.

(some items were changed for privacy reasons and non-disclosure policies)

Organizational Designs: Intro

A leader needs foresight, and must be able to see how all things are ordered according to the “Grand Design” or in a bigger picture.

I remember Clientlogic. They had the right set of values from the start: Vision, Passion, Purpose. Have that and you’ll have the making of phenomenal leaders — movers and shakers of their generations.

Strategic Leadership = knows how an action/interaction takes a toll on events, situations, people and organizations

Organizational structure provides the formal framework for communication and authority within the organization.

for communication = how entities, people groups or individuals interact with each other.

for authority = how decisions are formulated and implemented across the organization.

Good Organization Design

= helps in distributing total workload

Designs and work distribution are a good start, assuming workflows and processes are clearly delineated.

I then thought of my work here at the helpdesk. I wish there was a one-stop sourcebook for all the policies and escalation paths instead of having to maintain a sharp memory and expert navigation through my grossly limited email inbox and the not-so process-friendly knowledge base.

= coordinating diverse organizational tasks

that involves a great deal of Politics. In the Philippines, pakikisama, saving face, and long-term relationships either make or break deals and businesses.

Design elements

Centralization = unravels the derivation, divergence and dynamics of decision-making

If management has confidence in its employees or teams, it may provide them with the autonomy to handle issues themselves.

The Dell Pasay Experience = So much decentralization happened, that supervisors failed to meet the business need – to generate income.

Complexity = the degree and extent of bureaucracy in an organization

how many are many systems within a system, how they interact and support each other

Formalization = the physics and dynamics of processes and interactions among systems, people groups and/or individuals within the organization

The Canadian Experience = Before, employees in a certain corporation holding office 2 steps away from the IT Department’s office would simply walk into the IT Personnel’s room and “take” the IT guy to his desk to have his problem fixed. Now, they have to call the IT Helpdesk.

Security becomes the main concern as an organization branches out and increases its scope and responsibilities, paving way for formalization and formulation of stronger and more consistent workflows and processes.

As organizations age, they tend to become more complex, formalized and centralized. However, the need to introduce changes within the system overturns this natural trend by varying degrees.

An organization may have more complex, more formalized structures and processes, but may have its decision bodies decentralized.

Horizontal Dimension = Applies best to Organizations with departments of diverse nature and functions. Manufacturing industries benefit best from this structure. Grouping people by their function/purpose maximizes their productivity, which of course translates to a better income and more profits.

Vertical Dimension = applies to mega-organizations with sub-organizations of similar nature and functions within. Dell Pasay is a good example. Over 40 teams do the same job –– Dell Consumer Technical Support.

Siemens however has a mix of both the vertical and horizontal dimension in its organizational hierarchy, which is mainly due to the diverse business groups/units, often cross-sectoral, within its conglomerate.